Adam Gase glanced out the window of a cruise ship Wednesday morning, then began talking about the Cleveland Browns.

Until recently, Gase was in deep with thoughts about becoming Cleveland’s head coach.

Imagine the mental whirlpool. Here is a 35-year-old, first-time offensive coordinator, trying to help the Denver Broncos reach a Super Bowl. He would be casting his lot with a team that is taking on its fifth head coach since the start of the 2008 season.

The Browns are unlikely to admit whether they would have offered Gase the job. He declined an interview with them prior to Denver’s first playoff game, against the Chargers.

The Broncos won. Gase saw a problem. If they won again, beating New England, he would be in the Super Bowl. If they lost to the Patriots, he would be a less attractive candidate.

He said he called Browns owner Jimmy Haslam before the New England game to take himself out of the running.

“The only thing I knew about Mr. Haslam,” Gase said, “was the good things that Peyton (Manning) said about him over the last couple of years, and how they were good friends and both Tennessee guys. So, I never heard a negative word about him.

“For me, I wanted to make sure I did everything in a respectful manner, because I have a lot respect for him.”

The Browns entered Gase’s world shortly after firing Rob Chudzinski on Dec. 30. They made an official request to Broncos head coach John Fox to participate in an early window of interviews open to coaches in the playoffs.

“Originally when John sent the slip back, I called (Browns CEO) Joe Banner, and I just informed him what I was going to do,” Gase said.

Gase told Banner he would do no interviews until after the Broncos’ season was over.

“Then Mr. Haslam ... he called me and introduced himself, and we had a discussion,” Gase said. “And those guys ... they’re great. Any time we won a game, they’d just text me and say, ‘Great game, keep on rolling.’ ”

There were only two such games. Wins over San Diego and New England sent Gase to the cruise ship (docked in Hoboken, N.J.) from which the Broncos entertained writers before heading off to Super Bowl practice.

Gase said he did not decide before the playoffs that he would never say yes to a Browns interview. Why did he do so before the AFC title game against New England?

“I wasn’t sure how things were going to play out,” he said. “It didn’t really hit me until probably after the San Diego game ... after we won that game. And then, I kind of knew in my mind ... it was like, we’re not going to ... it would be hard for me, because if we had lost to New England, I knew what kind of effect that was going to have on me, and I wouldn’t have been able to get (the Browns job).”

Page 2 of 3 - Gase is seen as a rising star, but he became a coordinator only this year, and it can be argued that Peyton Manning might have gotten the Broncos to the Super Bowl with any old coordinator.

Yet, Gase said, with careful elaboration, he believes he is ready to be a head coach.

“That was the first thing they asked me,” he said, alluding to conversations with Banner and Haslam. “I do feel I was ready. It’s just ... when we beat San Diego and got to the next game, I just felt like it was mentally ... it was kind of ... one way or another, if we beat New England, I’m not going to do anything until February.”

The Browns wouldn’t have been able to hire Gase until Sunday night, after the Super Bowl battle against Seattle. That only would have happened had Gase submitted to a second window of interview opportunity with the Browns, before Broncos left for New York.

Gase imagined getting the job so late, weeks after the last of the other 31 teams had hired a head coach.

"And then, all of a sudden, it’s going to be a quick spiral,” he said. “Implementing an offense. Getting a staff ready to go. Getting into the combine.

“That’s a lot of stuff in about 2 1/2 weeks. I didn’t think it was fair to myself or them to be, like, ‘I’m not going to be able to get all this stuff implemented.’ And I knew if we lost I was going to be like ... out of it.”

As to phoning Haslam to bow out, Gase said, “There was not a lot of dialogue there. I was not trying to put them in a bad position.”

Gase was hired in Denver in 2009 by Josh McDaniels, who had just taken over as head coach. Gase survived the firing of McDaniels late in the 2010 season, became Fox’s quarterbacks coach in 2011 and 2012, and was promoted to coordinator in 2013.

Gase and McDaniels remain friends who relate to each other.

McDaniels relied heavily on Bill Belichick’s advice as to whether he was ready before jumping from a coordinator job in New England into the Denver head coaching job. McDaniels also relied on, among others, his father, Thom, who was his high school coach at Canton McKinley.

“We used to see Thom around all the time, when Josh was here,” Gase said.

Who was advising Gase?

He said one of his “mentors” is Mike Martz, with whom he worked in Detroit. That’s one reason hiring Gase might have kept some continuity with the Browns’ offense. The 2013 Browns used Norv Turner’s system, whose concepts resemble Martz’s.

Page 3 of 3 - Gase went on: “I had lot of conversations with my own dad (Art Gase). He’s more a business-world person, but his opinion means a lot to me.

“Coach Fox and I kind of had a few discussions on when is the right time, and all these things. He was great. He was ... ‘You’ll know. You’ll have a good feel.’”

Gase’s feel for the Cleveland job circled around to the circumstances and the feel being wrong. That ship sailed.